Radical reformation...Week 49

What is a true believer anyhow?

Recently I mentioned I had to talk about my radical ancestors. I’m finally getting around to it!  Over many years I’ve slowly worked on a family tree through Ancestry.com. This all started because I did my husband’s family tree as a Christmas present for him. His biological father was an only child and died when my husband was a kid. So he knew almost nothing about that side of his family. I discovered so many interesting things! I won’t go into that because it’ll take too long. Just suffice to say I was encouraged to then dive into my own ancestry.

So over the years and in my spare time (haha) I’ve slowly worked on it. I love piecing the story together though census documents and such. But it can also be a huge time sucker. As I said, I’ve done it in bits and pieces. During the pandemic, though, I got to an interesting end of the line (or beginning) with one branch of my mother’s family. I finally figured out so much about those relatives who originally came to the U.S. and the story was truly surprising.

My ancestors Rosina Yeakel and Abraham Beyer/Boyer (spellings often vary because they didn't speak English) came to this country, which was a British colony at the time, to escape enslavement and persecution in their own country. (The irony isn’t lost on me — this was the 1730s, a time when the majority of enslaved Africans were forcibly being brought here.)

My ancestors were from Silesia (at that time it was an area on the eastern border of Germany; today it would be considered southwestern Poland). Rosina and Abraham were Schwenckfelders. I know, the name sounds ridiculous! But Schwenckfelders — still in existence today— follow the theology of a guy named Caspar Schwenckfeld, who died in the 1500s but who basically during his lifetime became a nemesis of Martin Luther. The Martin Luther. He was a crony of Luther at first and then had a falling out over stuff like whether people should take communion and if you should baptize a baby at birth. He was also against pomp and circumstance and showy places of worship. And, like Martin Luther, was part of the radical reformation; in particular, they stood in opposition to the Catholic church when it came to selling indulgences, which was basically the Catholic church charging people to supposedly absolve them from their sin or to release relatives from purgatory after death.

Anyhow, Schwenckfeld fought with Martin Luther over some matters and then his followers broke off. Today there are something like 80 million Lutherans in the world. Meanwhile we have the Schwenckfelders, with a total of about 2,500 members. Of course, my relatives would follow this guy:) From a branding perspective, the name really sucks. But in all seriousness the ideas sound pretty good…he was against violence and he was heavily influenced by German spiritualism. It seems Schwenckfelders share some of the values of Quakers and Unitarians. They’re proponents of religious freedom, tolerance, charity and education. And, from what I can glean, they were anti-slavery during that time.

Last year I was able to visit the Schwenckfelder Library and Heritage Center in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. Here’s what they say about the six groups of founding Schwenckfelder families:

For generations after Caspar Schwenckfeld’s death, Schwenkfelder communities survived without a formal leader for the group. Schwenkfelders endured years of oppression. Enslaved on ships, jailed, fined, and put in stocks, they were not allowed freedom of worship for 150 years. Persecution sometimes came from Lutherans, Catholics, and foremost government officials.

In the 1720s, the new Lutheran priest in Harpersdorf, where many Schwenkfelders then lived, had no tolerance for their ways. At the same time a Jesuit mission was set up in the village to convert the Schwenkfelders to Catholicism. By the 1730s, it was clear that these people could not continue to worship as they wished in Europe. Various groups, such as the Mennonites and Moravians, had sent people to the new colony of Pennsylvania where Christians could worship freely and recommended the Schwenkfelders settle there too. 

Four Schwenkfelder churches and the heritage center exist today. All are within 50 miles of Philadelphia. By the 1840s, it seems my ancestors drifted from the Schwenckfelder society. Abraham and Rosina’s great grandson Jesse Boyer (my great-great grandfather) made his way to Wisconsin, where I assume nobody had ever heard of this religion and where I know no Schwenckfelder church existed. Nothing of the religion was passed down. I had never heard the word Schwenckfelder before coming upon this discovery. But I have to admit that I always felt my grandparents were suspicious of Lutherans and Catholics. I doubt they would care, though, that I married a (former) Catholic and I’ve taught at a Lutheran university.

But sometimes I do wonder if even when you are not intentionally passing something down through the generations, maybe you still do. Maybe there’s a sort of spiritual or religious epigenetics even. I was sent to a Baptist church that did not baptize children at birth or believe in weekly communion. I’m intentionally writing “sent” because my fam didn’t go — they put me on the Sunday school bus or dropped me off, which is a whole other story. But if you really follow the thinking of Caspar Schwenckfeld it would hardly matter. They didn't need to go anywhere. True believing is purely an inside job.

Since we just celebrated July 4th, I thought you might like to know a bit about these lesser known radicals that helped found our country.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “…every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” Well, if you listen to this lecture I just found today about Schwenckfelders you will hear the lecturer say their arguments were all about nuance — hilarious because last week I talked about the importance of nuance. Maybe RWE was correct?

To be balanced, next week I must talk about the other side of my family, which has also rendered some surprises.

Lastly, because July 3 would’ve been my sister’s birthday, I’ll share this:

This is my older sister Sherri and me. She died in a car accident in 1993. This is the photo my dad, an ironworker, kept in his wallet for 20+ years.

May your week be bright and your beliefs be as radical as any Schwenckfelder! By the way, you may have noticed we only have a few weeks left in this year long experiment!